


light to the blind

by ninemoons42



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Boys In Love, Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV, Enthusiastic Consent, Falling In Love, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff and Smut, Frottage, I love the idea of them being cute like this, M/M, Relationship Negotiation, Romantic Fluff, Sexual Inexperience, brotherhood-era fic, lots of first kisses actually, talking about the idea of virginity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 03:26:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13181376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: Gladio runs through the corridors of the Citadel, and makes a confession, and maybe tonight he'll finally work up the courage to actually act on his feelings.





	light to the blind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [johanirae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/johanirae/gifts), [ElenaHana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElenaHana/gifts).



> Prompt from Johanirae and cheerleading and love from Hanatsuki89.

He pressed his free hand over his chest and tried to rub a calming circle over his own heart, and it was no good, no good at all: the dark corridor pressing in on him made him feel like he could feel everything, hear everything, too loud and too much and too _perfect_ , and he couldn’t remember making this decision, not when every fiber of his being was too caught up in the whirl that was the man next to him.

Whirl of moonlight-lines slanting into his hair, and glinting off his glasses: just enough, Gladio thought, just enough to see that dark red flush on his cheeks by. 

Gods and Astrals, he’d do anything, pretty much anything he could think of in his own limited experience, to see how far that flush went.

Just, how? -- he thought. How was he going to go about it?

All the words he’d read, all the pages he’d shuffled through, all the time blushing as he read paperback after paperback: words were lovely, words kept him going when he could no longer breathe for the exhaustion that seemed to live in his very nerves. And all the words were inadequate in the here and now, where the Citadel’s noise and the Citadel’s laughter seemed to have fallen very far away below them, down where the holiday party was in full swing, and -- he didn’t care for the food or the singing or the laughter, not when there was this.

This being the quiet chime of a door opening, and the equally quiet breaths next to him.

This being -- he took a deep breath, and squared his shoulders, and tried to remember how he’d actually gotten here in the first place, and -- the smile came naturally to him, after all, as he turned and stroked his thumb over the wilting point of a collar. “May I?”

An answer, not at all spoken, but clarion-clear: and his arms were moving to hold the shape of Ignis, the shape that trembled against him, the kiss that shivered into a soft slow smile against his own mouth.

Gladio tasted champagne on him, tawny sugar-glaze, and -- cherries, that sort of made him laugh and made him card his hands into Ignis’s hair because -- of course he would know, of course he would _remember_ , that Gladio’d gotten into so much trouble over the years because he’d steal cherries from the orchards even before they could get truly ripe, to the point of enlisting the Prince as a decoy, as a backup, as an escape hatch.

Cherry-kisses frantic and clumsy and maybe Gladio opened his eyes at the wrong moment, or at the right moment, to see the flash of fear that suddenly darkened Ignis’s face.

It was not easy to pull away, and especially not when Ignis made such a quiet yearning sound as they parted.

But Gladio needed to know, needed to -- do something.

And he tried to hitch on a more reassuring smile, a smile like all the others they’d exchanged over blades, over books, over boxes full of delicate things to eat. “Hey. Iggy. Okay?”

Blanch and blush racing each other over those sharp cheekbones.

He almost regretted asking, almost regretted pulling away, because Ignis was looking everywhere else except at him: almost, because Ignis’s hands were still where he’d put them, drawing Gladio in -- one on his shoulder and one on the lapel of his formal jacket. Still clutching at him as though he were some sort of lifeline.

So Gladio had to know, had to at least make the attempt to be that lifeline.

But his hands, his traitorous hands, that continued to rub circles over the patch of skin next to Ignis’s collar, that continued to hold Ignis close by the chain of his old-fashioned pocketwatch.

He needed to break away, right? Needed to give Ignis a moment.

But -- cherries -- 

And Gladio blinked and came back to himself because Ignis was laughing, and pressing close, and -- oh, oh, he was laughing _right over Gladio’s heart_ and he couldn’t describe the feeling that speared through him, that cut him wide open and longing and sweet.

“I’m a fool, Gladiolus,” was the whisper that he heard through the quiet of their breaths, of Ignis’s soft laugh, of his own heart pounding in his ears. “A plain base fool.”

“I don’t like the idea of you tearing yourself down,” he warned, because if this was not a time to be honest, then when was that time?

“You would laugh at me too. I -- I -- ”

Ignis, pushing upright, and taking a step away.

Gladio knew himself for an idiot when he had to make himself let go of him.

But Ignis was still smiling. The words were still laced with the scent of cherries. “Wouldn’t you? If I told you I came to the party intent on, on you, on catching your attention at last, and I -- I don’t know what happens, after this.” Gesture, graceful, a hand that was beautiful no matter whether it held a weapon or a kitchen knife or, in this case, nothing at all except Gladio’s own heart. “I -- I know a little, about kissing. And I’m afraid that’s the extent of my knowledge, and -- well. Hence the conclusion of my foolishness.”

“Call me a fool, then -- double a fool,” Gladio heard himself say, once he was done picking over those words. “Because -- what makes you think I know more than you do, when it comes to this? Oh, don’t give me that look,” and he made the face back at Ignis, exaggerating the awkward twist of his own mouth. “I only read things. Gotten off to -- words, words in novels. I -- honestly, how could I have had the time to do anything else? You know my schedule as well as I do. You know it even better than I do, most days. So, tell me, what else would I know and when, how, would I know it?”

Wide wide eyes looking at him. He couldn’t read them. 

Luckily Ignis was talking again: that he was well-versed in, when it came to wading through the thickets of the words, in order to find their meanings. “And -- tonight?”

He laughed, softly. 

Laid himself bare with a quick cut of words. “Whatever you want -- tonight, and after. I mean, your call. Kissing? Anything else? Everything else? Yeah, you got it. Your call. At least you know, I mean, I don’t know anything. I’m going into this blind, same as you.”

Soft spreading light of a smile.

And Ignis’s hands taking his, guiding his, raising his.

Gladio blinked and realized he -- they -- were taking off those eyeglasses. 

“None so blind as those who will not see,” and Ignis sounded like he was quoting something, or someone, and Gladio was too dazed on the gesture, too struck by the dents on either side of the bridge of that nose, the grooves worn in at those temples.

“Why do you even wear such small frames, I don’t know,” he muttered, and he looked around for a safe place to stow those glasses away -- saw the narrow table on which Ignis’s key-card rested -- put the glasses down as carefully as he could. “Get better glasses, Iggy.”

“I intend to.” Glint, strange, in those eyes: half a challenge, half shyness.

Gladio didn’t know what he looked like when he grinned back: only knew the gasp of “Yes” against his mouth when he pulled Ignis close to kiss him again.

Cherries and champagne on his tongue, and beneath all that the blind courage, the blind blade-sharp determination of him: so Gladio poured himself into those kisses even when their teeth clicked together, even when their noses bumped against each other -- he laughed, and listened for Ignis’s laughter, and dove back in, and -- 

“Gladio: may I?”

One of those increasingly breathless pauses and -- 

Oh.

Ignis’s hands on the buttons of his jacket.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, nodding too much, too quickly, and again there was that sweet laughter, mocking, but not for him -- not tonight.

He hoped.

And he stroked his thumb again over the vee of skin exposed by Ignis’s collar, and asked, in his own turn: “This okay?”

Nod: slow, determined, brave.

He stooped to kiss that vee as he widened it, as he started to follow that flush, those heaving breaths, down and down as he fumbled with the buttons -- there were _a lot_ of buttons for some reason -- he mouthed at Ignis’s skin and hoped for the best, and maybe that was his name, gently breaking in the charged spaces between them -- he hoped, because he couldn’t really hear, not when he was drowning in the taste and the smell of Ignis -- 

Shirt off, falling into a crumpled heap.

Gladio grinned and maybe he didn’t look too ridiculous when he was down here on his knees, half in and half out of his suit, because he could now take in the dark red blush rising high and far on Ignis’s skin. Cheekbones, chin, collar bones, chest -- the thin tell-tale lines of scarring on his bared arms, the pinpoint-dark spots of his birthmarks, the odd cluster of freckles peeking up just over the waistband of his trousers.

The smell of him, and the unmistakable hard ridge in those same trousers.

Gladio caught his breath, and made himself get back up so he could -- he’d thought about kissing him again, but apparently some distant part of his mind had had better ideas, because he was pulling off his own clothes instead.

The reward was that knowing soft smile appearing again on Ignis’s mouth, and his hand -- trembling -- as he wordlessly motioned for Gladio to turn around.

Those hands on his bare skin, tracing the inked lines of the bird of prey he wore: and the last time he’d felt like those inked lines were burning was over a year ago, when the whole thing had finally been completed in a welter of obscured scars and clamoring nerves -- but now, but now, with Ignis painstakingly tracing the feathers it felt like -- now he was gasping and gritting his teeth, sweetly overwhelmed, head bowed until his chin was touching his chest because he’d never felt so good before, so stripped-down and exposed and wanted -- he closed his eyes against the feelings and couldn’t hope to win out against them, not like this -- 

He cried out, wordless and inadequate and yearning, as he felt the arms winding around him: one locking carefully below his throat, the other around his waist. The weight and the presence and the naked skin of Ignis against him, pressed completely into his back.

Naked and trembling. 

Almost as close as the tattoo he wore.

He reached over his shoulder to hold Ignis in place, touched the vital heat in that arm and he could laugh, maybe, he could laugh, because he didn’t know anything and Ignis didn’t know anything and what did that matter, what did that matter, in the here and now when just touching like this made him feel like he was already teetering on that perilous beautiful edge, when just the two of them like this was already far too much and far too little at the same time --

He turned around, and maybe the movement was too sudden because Ignis let out an odd sound, and Gladio saw the shock in his eyes and he moved as quickly as he could, catching him around the shoulders, around the back of his head -- and then he was looking down at Ignis on the carpet, laid out below him, the surprise melting away into that sharp sweetness that made Gladio go tense and then -- it was his turn to cry out, that name twisted into a groan, as Ignis rocked his hips upwards.

And not just once: again, and again, and he really was whispering, he really was saying Gladio’s name, like the best kind of rush, like need, like that yearning he could finally put a name to.

It was nothing more or less than whip and spurs and lash and he groaned, and gave in. 

Ignis’s voice half-rising into a strangled shout as their bodies aligned, as they ground desperately together, against each other: Gladio tasted cherries and salt on his throat as he ran his tongue blind and shaking into those hollows and curves, and he opened his eyes against that fevered skin as he fell over that edge -- lips against that Adam’s apple as it worked up and down, and then, then Ignis was freezing at the moment of his own release, spilling over into limp relief in Gladio’s arms.

Waiting for him to come back to himself, Gladio stared at the sweat beading in Ignis’s hair, at the curve of his mouth, at the angle of his jaw, and -- remembered he might have permission to touch, permission to feel him out as though he’d never seen him before.

He tried to be gentle as he ran his fingertips over those new places, that receding flush, that smile that was pulling at all the lines of Ignis’s face.

“I have one request,” he said.

Gladio caught his breath and made himself keep looking at him. “Yeah.”

And nearly stopped dead in shock when he felt Ignis mirror those movements on him: touch his temple, the scar on his face, the bridge of his nose. “Don’t go?”

Oh, relief -- it tasted like Ignis’s kiss, like cherries.

“You’ll have to kick me out to leave,” he said, breathless, laughing against Ignis’s skin.

“I wouldn’t.”

Gladio grinned, and closed his eyes, the better to feel him, to listen to him, to be with him.

**Author's Note:**

> ninemoons42 on Tumblr: [@ninemoons42-lestallumhaven](http://ninemoons42-lestallumhaven.tumblr.com/) or [@ninemoons42](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/)


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